d utter awakening to the truth that his home had
outgrown him fell upon the fourth afternoon following his return, when a
total but most affable gentleman presented himself to Whitaker's
consideration with a bogus name and a genuine offer to purchase him a
drink, and promptly attempted to enmesh him in a confidence game that
had degenerated into a vaudeville joke in the days when both of them had
worn knickerbockers. Gently but firmly entrusting the stranger to the
care of a convenient policeman, Whitaker privately admitted that he was
outclassed, that it was time for him to seek the protection of his
friends.

He began with Drummond. The latter, of course, had moved his offices; no
doubt he had moved them several times; however that may be, Whitaker had
left him in quiet and contracted quarters in Pine Street; he found him
independently established in an imposing suite in the Woolworth
Building.

Whitaker gave one of Mr. Hugh Morten's cards to a subdued office-boy.
"Tell him," he requested, "that I want to see him about a matter
relating to the estate of Mr. Whitaker."

The boy dived through one partition-door and reappeared by way of
another with the deft certainty of a trained pantomime.

"Says t' come in."

Whitaker found himself in the presence of an ashen-faced man of
thirty-five, who clutched the side of his roll-top desk as if to save
himself from falling.

"Whitaker!" he gasped. "My God!"

"Flattered," said Whitaker, "I'm sure."

He derived considerable mischievous amusement from Drummond's patent
stupefaction. It was all so right and proper--as it should have been. He
considered his an highly satisfactory resurrection, the sensation it
created as complete, considered in the relation of anticipation to
fulfilment, as anything he had ever experienced. Seldom does a scene
pass off as one plans it; the other parties thereto are apt to spoil
things by spouting spontaneously their own original lines, thus cheating
one out of a crushing retort or cherished epigram. But Drummond played
up his part in a most public-spirited fashion--gratifying, to say the
least.

It took him some minutes to recover, Whitaker standing by and beaming.

He remarked changes, changes as striking as the improvement in
Drummond's fortunes. Physically his ex-partner had gone off a bit; the
sedentary life led by the average successful man of business in New York
had marked his person unmistakably. Much heavier than the man Whitaker